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8 reviews for:
Blood in the Fields: Ten Years Inside California's Nuestra Familia Gang
Julia Reynolds
4.13 AVERAGE
8 reviews for:
Blood in the Fields: Ten Years Inside California's Nuestra Familia Gang
Julia Reynolds
4.13 AVERAGE
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
reflective
sad
medium-paced
dark
informative
tense
fast-paced
challenging
informative
medium-paced
informative
mysterious
slow-paced
I feel like this would have been better in a physical format over audio, but I still thought it was very informative and helped me learn a bunch about my hometown’s history. The format seems similar to ‘In Cold Blood,’ but I think the narrations should have been similar to that of ‘Killers Of The Flower Moon.’
The Nuestra Familia gang was born and raised in the jails and prisons of Fresno, California to protect Northern California Mexican Americans from their Southern California counterparts the Mexican Mafia. Limited social and educational opportunities created fertile soil in the farm towns of central and northern California for the gang to spread beyond prison walls. Tightly organized, Nuestra Familia grew to control much of the crime in California.
BLOOD IN THE FIELDS chronicles the rise, fall and rise of Nuestra Familia. Many stories of gang lives ending suddenly in the street or slowly in prison already exist but this book starts by showing how those lives began. It speaks to how poverty and discrimination close doors that might lead away from crime allowing gangs to fill the gaps where hope should be. A society that stifles hope does so at its own peril. Through unique and extended access to gang members and their lives the author runs several biographical stories through the narrative of this book. We watch youngsters harden to survive and ultimately better serve the Nuestra Familia only to have them eventually question their devotion to an organization they finally sadly realize does not really care about them at all. Crushing are the moments where violent men cry for the loss of their families—gone is any chance to hold their wives and raise their kids.
Much of the criminal activity is woven into the narrative from the perspective of law enforcement. This has its moments and acts as a presentation of a path not taken by those who became gang members, but the extensive politics involved in trying to unravel the Nuestra Familia distracts from the compelling part of the book. About this time it became more difficult to keep track of which gang member was doing what and the pulse of the book began to weaken. Either a more parallel structure of gangs and law enforcement or sticking to just the stories of gang members would have better served the book. Still unique and fascinating and worthwhile.
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Gang violence, narrative non-fivtion, well written and flows nicely
challenging
dark
informative
medium-paced